Isabel sat up in bed, and listened.
“Is it my Lord coming home?” I said.
“What, all alone, with no company?” answered Isabel, who is four years elder than I. “Silly child! It is some news for my Lady my mother. The saints grant it be good!”
Of course we could hear nothing of what passed at the portcullis, as our window opened on the base court. But in a few minutes we heard the horse come trotting into our court, and the rider ’lighted down: and Isabel, who lay with her head next the casement, sat up again and put her head out of the curtain. It was a beautiful moonlight night, almost as bright as day.
“What is it, Ibbot?” said Kate.
“It is a man in livery,” answered Isabel; “but whose livery I know not. It is not ours.”
Then we heard the man call to the porter, and the door open, and the sound of muffled voices to and fro for a minute; and then Master Inge’s step, which we knew—he was then castellan—coming in great haste past our door as if he were going to my Lady’s chamber. Then the door of the large nursery opened, and we heard Dame Hilda within, saying to Tamzine, “Thou wert better run and see.” And Tamzine went quickly along the gallery, as if she, too, were going to my Lady.
For a long, long time, as it seemed to us—I dare say it was not many minutes—we lay and listened in vain. At length Tamzine came back.
“Good tidings, or bad?” we heard Dame Hilda ask.
“The saints wot!” whispered Tamzine. “My Lord is ’scaped from the Tower.”